See
her life, written by F. Seraphin Razzi, a Dominican friar, who knew her, and was
fifty-eight years old when she died. The nuns of her monastery gave an ample
testimony that this account was conformable partly to what they knew of her, and
partly to MS, memorials left by her confessor and others concerning her. Whence
F. Echard calls this life a work accurately written. It was printed in 4to. at
Lucca, in 1594. Her life was again compiled by F. Philip Guidi, confessor to the
saint and to the Duchess of Urbino, and printed at Florence, in two vols. 4to.,
in 1622. FF. Michael Pio and John Lopez, of the same order, have given abstracts
of her life. See likewise Bened. XIV de Can. Serv. Dei. t. 5. inter Act. Can 5.
SS. Append.

The Ricci are an ancient family, which still subsists in a flourishing
condition in Tuscany. Peter de Ricci, the father of our saint, was married to
Catherine Bonza, a lady of suitable birth. The saint was born at Florence in
1522, and called at her baptism Alexandrina, but she took the name of Catherine
at her religious profession. Having lost her mother in her infancy, she was
formed to virtue by a very pious godmother, and whenever she was missing she was
always to be found on her knees in some secret part of the house. When she was
between six and seven years old, her father placed her in the Convent of
Monticelli, near the gates of Florence, where her aunt, Louisa de Ricci, was a
nun. This place was to her a paradise: at a distance from the noise and tumult
of the world, she served God without impediment or distraction. After some years
her father took her home. She continued her usual exercises in the world as much
as she was able; but the interruptions and dissipation, inseparable from her
station, gave her so much uneasiness that, with the in consent of her father,
which she obtained, though with great difficulty, in the year 1535, the
fourteenth of her age, she received the religious veil in the convent of
Dominicanesses at Prat, in Tuscany, to which her uncle, F. Timothy de Ricci, was
director. God, in the merciful design to make her the spouse of his crucified
Son, and to imprint in her soul dispositions conformable to his, was pleased to
exercise her patience by rigorous trials For two years she suffered
inexpressible pains under a complication of violent distempers, which remedies
themselves served only to increase. These sufferings she sanctified by the
interior dispositions with which she bore them, and which she nourished
principally by assiduous meditation on the passion of Christ, in which she found
an incredible relish and a solid comfort and joy. After the recovery of her
health, which seemed miraculous, she studied more perfectly to die to her
senses, and to advance in a penitential life and spirit, in which God had begun
to conduct her, by practicing the greatest austerities which were compatible
with the obedience she had professed; she fasted two or three days a week on
bread and water, and sometimes passed the whole day without taking any
nourishment, and chastised her body with disciplines and a sharp iron chain
which she wore next her skin. Her obedience, humility, and meekness were still
more admirable than her spirit of penance. The least shadow of distinction or
commendation gave her inexpressible uneasiness and confusion, and she would have
rejoiced to be able to lie hid in the centre of the earth, in order to be
entirely unknown to and blotted out of the hearts of all mankind, such were the
sentiments of annihilation and contempt of herself in which she constantly
lived. It was by profound humility and perfect interior self-denial that she
learned to vanquish in her heart the sentiments or life of the first Adam—that
is, of corruption, sin, and inordinate self-love. But this victory over herself,
and purgation of her affections, was completed by a perfect spirit of prayer;
for by the union of her soul with God, and the establishment of the absolute
reign of his love in her heart, she was dead to and disengaged from all earthly
things. And in one act of sublime prayer she advanced more than by a hundred
exterior practices in the purity and ardour of her desire to do constantly what
was most agreeable to God, to lose no occasion of practicing every heroic
virtue, and of vigorously resisting all that was evil. Prayer, holy meditation,
and contemplation were the means by which God imprinted in her soul sublime
ideas of his heavenly truths, the strongest and most tender sentiments of all
virtues, and the most burning desire to give all to God, with an incredible
relish and affection for suffering contempt and poverty for Christ. What she
chiefly laboured to obtain, by meditating on his life and sufferings, and what
she most earnestly asked of him, was that he would be pleased, in his mercy, to
purge her affections of all poison of the inordinate love of creatures, and
engrave in her his most holy and divine image, both exterior and interior—that
is to say, both in her conversation and her affections, that so she might be
animated, and might think, speak, and act by his most Holy Spirit. The saint was
chosen, very young, first, mistress of the novices, then sub-prioress, and, in
the twenty-fifth year of her age, was appointed perpetual prioress. The
reputation of her extraordinary sanctity and prudence drew her many visits from
a great number of bishops, princes, and cardinals—among others, of Cervini,
Alexander of Medicis, and Aldobrandini, who all three were afterwards raised to
St. Peter's chair, under the names of Marcellus II, Clement VIII, and Leo XI.

Something like what St. Austin relates of St. John of Egypt happened to St.
Philip Neri and St. Catherine of Ricci. For having some time entertained
together a commerce of letters, to satisfy their mutual desire of seeing each
other, whilst he was detained at Rome she appeared to him in a vision, and they
conversed together a considerable time, each doubtless being in a rapture. This
St. Philip Neri, though most circumspect in giving credit to or in publishing
visions, declared, saying that Catherine de Ricci, whilst living, had appeared
to him in vision, as his disciple Galloni assures us in his life.[1] And the
continuators of Bollandus inform us that this was confirmed by the oaths of five
witnesses.[2] Bacci, in his life of St. Philip, mentions the same thing, and
Pope Gregory XV, in his bull for the canonization of St. Philip Neri, affirms
that whilst this saint lived at Rome he conversed a considerable time with
Catherine of Ricci, a nun, who was then at Prat, in Tuscany.[3] Most wonderful
were the raptures of St. Catherine in meditating on the passion of Christ, which
was her daily exercise, but to which she totally devoted herself every week from
Thursday noon to three o'clock in the afternoon on Friday. After a long illness
she passed from this mortal life to everlasting bliss and the possession of the
object of all her desires, on the feast of the Purification of our Lady, on the
2nd of February, in 1589, the sixty-seventh year of her age. The ceremony of her
beatification was performed by Clement XII in 1732, and that of her canonization
by Benedict XIV in 1746. Her festival is deferred to the 13th of February.

In the most perfect state of heavenly contemplation which this life admits
of, there must be a time allowed for action, as appears from the most eminent
contemplatives among the saints, and those religious institutes which are most
devoted to this holy exercise. The mind of man must be frequently unbent, or it
will be overset. Many, by a too constant or forced attention, have lost their
senses. in he body also stands in need of exercise, and in all stations men owe
several exterior duties both to others and themselves, and to neglect any of
these, upon presence of giving the preference to prayer, would be a false
devotion and dangerous illusion. Though a Christian be a citizen of heaven,
while he is a sojourner in this world, he is not to forget the obligations or
the necessities to which this state subjects him, or to dream of flights which
only angels and their fellow inhabitants of bliss take. As a life altogether
taken up in action and business, without frequent prayer and pious meditation,
alienates a soul from God and virtue, and weds her totally to the world, so a
life spent wholly in contemplation, without any mixture of action, is
chimerical, and the attempt dangerous. The art of true devotion consists very
much in a familiar and easy habit of accompanying exterior actions and business
with a pious attention to the Divine Presence, frequent secret aspirations, and
a constant union of the soul with God. This St. Catherine of Ricci practiced at
her work, in the exterior duties of her house and office, in her attendance on
the sick (which was her favourite employment, and which she usually performed on
her knees), and in the tender care of the poor over the whole country. But this
hindered not the exercises of contemplation, which were her most assiduous
employment. Hence retirement and silence were her delight, in order to entertain
herself with t. Creator of all things, and by devout meditation, kindling in her
soul the fire of heavenly love, she was never able to satiate the ardour of her
desire in adoring and praising the immense greatness and goodness of God.